


Gone, Never Forgotten

by Theyna_Shipper



Series: Star Wars One-Shots [17]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo's Blue Butterflies, F/M, Gen, Good Dad Ben Solo, In this house we love and respect Rose Tico, Kid Fic, Let's make that a filterable tag, Post-TRoS, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey is dead right off the bat just fyi, Reylo Baby, Single Dad Ben Solo, TRoS Spoilers, Trials, come on guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24279004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theyna_Shipper/pseuds/Theyna_Shipper
Summary: Rey died on Exogol making her final stand against Palpatine. Ben Solo returns her body to the Resistance, to find the secret she has kept from him for the past year- and a reason to stay.
Relationships: Ben Solo & Rose Tico friendship - Relationship, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Star Wars One-Shots [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637683
Comments: 47
Kudos: 161





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this angsty bit I wrote! I don't know a lot about children but I'm fairly certain they sleep and need food and sometimes move.

Ben Solo has seen death, carnage, and bloodshed of every kind. He thought for sure nothing could faze him anymore. 

But the sight of Rey’s body, cold and battered, her eyes staring unseeing at the cathedral ceiling, is worse than anything he has seen before. Because in any other outcome he has ever constructed, this has never happened. Rey has always lived. He doesn’t even know what the world would look like without her in it. 

A single, desperate glance around the room tells him everything he needs to know: no one is coming to help. He is alone in this final fight. 

He holds Rey’s limp body in his lap and closes his eyes, resting his hand over her abdomen. _Please, Force, let this work, please_ , and shares his life with hers, giving her the only thing he can give, and when he opens his eyes, he will find…

Nothing. Her body is still cold and limp, her eyes still wide and glassy. He cannot save her. 

Every ghost of his past seems to call out to him from the cavern, every whisper inside his head. _You’re useless. You failed. The only thing you’ve ever cared about, you can’t. She wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you. You killed her._

All of these are probably true. But they don’t help him right now.. 

Ben closes Rey’s eyes and holds her close for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I love you.” Maybe somewhere in the network of the Force, she can hear him. 

Now he must return her body to her family.

************

It is a miracle Ben is not killed on sight, especially carrying the body of the Resistance’s hero. But his self-surrender, and some things Maz and Chewie say make them hesitate, and instead throw him into a cell for a day before coming down and demanding information. They are silent if not satisfied with his answers up to a point. 

“She died fighting the emperor,” he insists. “I would have saved her if I could.”

The man interrogating him- Dameron? Smashes Ben’s face into the wall. “Did you kill Rey?”

“ _No_ , dammit. I would never kill her.”

“Why should we believe you?”

He goes silent. He has nothing left to say to anyone anymore. Because Rey is dead. Rey, his soulmate, his life, his entire world is dead, with barely a smile to remember her by. 

They can take whatever else they want from him. 

************

He talks because it is what Rey would have wanted. He tells them what they want to know because it is what Rey wanted to know. He gives the war to the Resistance because they are all the world has left of Rey. 

************

“Hi. I’m Rose Tico.”

“Can we forego the pleasantries and skip to the part where you demand First Order information from me?” His snide sense of humor has not abandoned him entirely, even in his grieving state. 

“I just want to talk.”

He snorts. “I’m not an excellent conversationalist.”

“Tell me about Rey.”

So this _is_ a ploy. “No.”

“No information. Nothing about- what happened. I just want to hear you talk about her.”

“You were here friend?”

Tico nods.

“What could I tell you that I don’t already know.”

“You loved her,” she says matter-of-factly. “That must have meant something different. Made you see her in a different way. I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked. Tell me about her.”

“Dare I ask what makes you say _any_ of that?”

“Feminine intuition?” She smiles nervously. Ben shakes his head. “You don’t bring someone’s body to your worst enemies because ‘she deserves to be buried property’ and then let them take you prisoner when you’re just neutral towards her.”

He nods. “Fair.”

“So talk to me about Rey.”

Ben closes his eyes, a rush of feelings he has long quashed springing to his lips. “She was amazing.”

************

Rose Tico comes occasionally, sometimes for the same things as the other Resistance officers, but sometimes she really does just talk. There is something she is keeping from him, waiting to say, but he cannot tell what it is. So he sits, and sometimes he talks, and reforges a little bit of human connection. 

But he couldn’t begin to prepare himself for the day when she walks in with a tiny bundle of fabric in her arms. He can’t tell what it is. Clothing? A blanket? Why does she have it; why is she bringing it here?

“Rey never told you, did she?”

He assumes there was a lot Rey did not tell him. “Tell me what?”

“It was her most closely guarded secret. She only told Leia. Before Leia died, she told me. Now…”

“I have no idea what you’re…”

A tiny hand emerges from the bundle. “She said this came from a ‘moment of weakness’. For both of you. But I don’t think she ever regretted it.” She purses her lips. “Rey felt so guilty about leaving a three-month old. She wouldn’t have left if she didn’t believe in what she was going to do. She died because she could trust those she was leaving behind.” 

Rose looks right into his eyes at this part. He still doesn’t know how to respond, barely comprehending what she was saying; it didn’t make _sense_. 

“You still don’t understand, do you?” she says, smiling gently. He shakes his head. Rose pulls back the blankets a little from the baby’s face. “She’s Rey’s daughter,” she explains. “And yours.”

Slowly, the piece falls into place, except it’s a whole damn puzzle that he doesn’t even remember starting, and now it’s standing in front of him and he has to try to understand what any of it means. Is this why Rey blocked him out of the bond every time after that one night, why he’d barely seen or heard of her in a year. 

He is so absorbed in his thoughts, he doesn’t realize Rose is talking to him until she slaps him on the wrist. “Let me undo your cuffs.”

Ben holds out his hands cautiously. “You trust me?”

She wordlessly gestures to the gun at her hip. Enough for this. Not much else.

Rose sets the child carefully into his arms, making sure he supports her head. Ben knows how to hold a baby- he remembers being a young child in his with his mother’s friends occasionally handing him a child to hold, or a very young Force-sensitive being brought to Luke’s school- but those are all sad, bitter, memories now. 

The child looks almost identical to Rey- but her hair is distinctly Ben’s. She coos softly, and Ben feels himself smile for the first time in a long, long, while. “What’s her name?”

“Shmi,” Rose replies, brushing a lock of hair out of the baby’s face. “After her-” Rose pauses a moment to do the math- “Great-great-grandmother.”

“Shmi,” he repeats. “Hello, Shmi.” Holding the child, he is flooded with so much sadness and grief, and memories of Rey, but the rest of him never wants to let the girl go. 

He looks up at Rose Tico, who took risks and a leap of faith to bring the baby here. “Thank you.”

She lets him hold Shmi until she begins to cry.

Something feels different. Because now, he finally has something to live for. 

************

He doesn’t know if they know he can hear through the door. If they did, they probably wouldn’t change anything they were saying. 

“You’re taking the baby to see that _madman_? Why in the hell would you do that?” It sounds like the pilot, Dameron.

“No one else is usually here at this time.” It’s Rose. “Look, I’m her… guardian for now. I know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t care what Maz or Chewie or anyone else has said, he’s still dangerous.” The insults he is used to, and it is good to know what is said about him on base- but if they try to keep him from seeing Shmi, he might snap.

“How long, exactly has this been going on?” It sounds like the traitor stormtrooper, Finn. 

He can’t see the rising tension in the room, but it is implicit in everyone’s tones.

“He’s her father, he has a right!” Rose snaps. 

“Her-”

“Her father,” she repeats. “No one else knows. Don’t tell them yet. Now let me through.” 

Rose enters a moment later with Shmi. “Hey,” she says in a way that could, under different circumstances, almost be considered friendly. “I guess you heard all of that.”

Ben nods as she undoes his cuffs. “I suppose it was only a matter of time.”

“Still, I’d rather they not have found out like that…”

Shmi recognizes him now, smiles and plays with his hair. Her tiny hands have a surprisingly strong grip, and she can just hold her head up by herself. She looks more and more like her mother every day. 

“What did you say about Maz and Chewie?” he blurts out. He had hoped, if anyone, they would believe what he said about Rey’s death on Exogol, but had not accepted support or forgiveness- as if he’d earned it. 

“They’ve been trying to improve your reputation on base,” she explains. “Telling them what Leia would have wanted to know. That not everything has been- your fault.”

He purses his lips. “I can assure you, it has.”

She sighs. “Maybe only take the guilt for the things you’ve actually done, there are enough of those. You can stay like this for plenty of time, but sooner or later you’ll have to get up and live. And you owe Maz and Chewie for doing this ahead of your trial.”

“Trial,” he repeats, dazed. He supposes some part of him knew this would happen eventually- for murder, war crimes, and plenty else. But he hadn’t actually processed the idea of it occurring. 

“Yes. Your trial. And since no one else is willing, I’m going to help you prepare for it.”

************

“I don’t know why you’re even doing this,” he growled. “You must see this the way everyone else does. I killed everyone you love.”

“No,” Rose hissed. “Get out of your own, head, and help me here. Stop wallowing in your self-hatred, that’s what got you here in the first place. Idiot,” she gumbles.

“No. I’m a monster.. I’ll be found, guilty, and killed, and deserve it.”

“NO!” Rose shouts, slapping him hard across the face. “You’ll do this because dying won’t repay your debt to the galaxy; you’ll do this because Shmi doesn’t deserve to grow up an orphan, you’ll do this because you owe this to your mother and to Maz and to Chewie and everyone else who has ever tried to help you. We’ll do this because _this is what Rey would have wanted.”_ Then, for good measure, she slaps him again. 

He thinks, in another universe, he and Rose Tico could be good friends. 

************

“Accused, please state your name.”

“Ben Solo.”

A ripple goes through the crowd as he reclaims his old name, the one Rey called him by, the one he has accepted as his own. 

“And how do you plead?” The judge reads the charges. 

“Guilty,” he begins.”

************

The wave of suggestions for leniency he receives are completely and utterly undeserved. From Lando, about his childhood from Chewie as well, and from Maz about Rey’s faith in him. Even Rose defends him, about who he was to Rey and who he is for Shmi, The revelation of the baby’s parentage should probably have happened before the trial, although the shock afterwards is effectively widespread. 

Now he has only to await the verdict. 

“I thought you might want to see Shmi,” Rose says, setting the child in his arms. “I think that went… as well as it possibly could have.”

Ben nods. “But I’m prepared for the possibility that it didn’t.” He quietly presses a kiss to Shmi’s forehead. 

Rose purses her lips. “I’ll leave you alone for a minute?” He nods; she leaves. 

After a moment, he feels a flicker in the Force, the likes of which he has not felt in a very long time. He looks up across the room to see Rey- a projection of her, a ghost from the Force, but Rey nonetheless. 

He walks across the room to her, barely able to believe his eyes. That he would ever be able to receive closure like this…

“Rey,” he whispers reverently. 

“Ben.” She reaches up to cup his cheek. “I haven’t seen you in so long. I’ve been watching, though.” She looks down at Shmi. “Both of you.”

“I’m sorry. That I couldn’t be there for you. That I didn’t-”

“Shh,” Rey says softly. “It’s all over now. I don’t regret anything I did, except that I couldn’t be there for Shmi. You can do that for me.”

“There’s a chance that I won’t. If I’m not-”

“You will. It’s not your time yet. Stay with Shmi. When she’s old enough, tell her everything. And-” she sighs, already fading. She will not be able to stay much longer. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he whispers. 

Just as her ghost shimmers and fades, Rose comes back. “They’re ready for you, Ben.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this chapter turned out almost three times as long as the last one! It's way less angsty, though. Please enjoy.
> 
> TW: Fear of needles, mentions of torture, mentions of anxiety

Ben told himself he was prepared for the worst possible outcome; quite frankly, he’d been rather reckless with his own life since he joined the First Order. But this time, he finds himself hoping, hoping for anything better than the worst

He focuses on his own breath- a favorite tactic of the Jedi for clearing their minds of stress. _Breathe in, breathe out, feel it in your chest, breathe in…_

“You are sentenced to ten years in the service of the Resistance and the subsequent galactic government, however they choose to use you, with your case being reviewed at…” The judge drones on in legal jargon about the terms of the sentence. “A single violation of any term of sentencing, any intergalactic law, and punishment will be swift and harsh.”

He swallows, and nods. It is not his time to speak, but the question springs to his lips. “And Shmi? Will I get to see her?”

The judge purses her lips. “We will leave that up to Major Tico’s discretion for the time being.”

He breathes a slow sigh of relief. This, far from being the ‘not-worst’ outcome, is probably the best.

************

“The Supreme Leader is afraid of needles?” 

“I’m not the Supreme Leader,” he hisses. 

The nurse ignores him and continues preparing the tracker for injection, enjoying watching Ben twitch. “Seems like a bit of a strange weakness.”

He has plenty of bad experiences with needles. Of drugs and poisons and often just plain torture. His pain tolerance may be unusually high, but his sensitivity to plenty of the instruments remains acute. 

The nurse plunges a large needle into Ben’s arm. A small red light begins to flash underneath his skin. “You know how this works. We know where you are at all times, and you’d be a fool to think you can get away with anything.”

He’d be a fool to want to. 

************

“She won’t stop crying,” Rose sighs. “Nothing’s wrong, just…”

Finn and Dameron are standing a little off, watching him carefully as if trying to gauge the current turn of events, and whether he really is deserving of new opinions. 

He is not, but that’s beside the point. 

Ben bends down to take the child from Rose’s arms, and holds Shmi against his shoulder. 

The words come to his lips before it comes to his mind: a traditional lullaby which he heard as a child, almost forgotten but buried in some unlocked, untouched corner of his mind. It is one his mother sang to him- probably some forgotten Alderaanian song. He may be one of the last, if not the last, people in the galaxy to know it. 

His deep voice calms the baby, and he presses a kiss to the top of her head, but does not give her back to Rose immediately. He ignores the surprised faces of those standing around him, and wonders: where did that memory come from? Was it some kind of parental instinct? A distant memory waiting for the right moment to be triggered? He thought Snoke had expunged all but the framework of his happy, family memories, but they have only been hidden behind a veil.

Of course, they bring with them their own new kind of pain in the form of guilt, regret, and a bitter sort of nostalgia. Shmi does not deserve this pained legacy, he thinks. Then again, had he had not deserved his, but it made him who he is nonetheless. No one _deserves_ what they are born with, but it so rapidly becomes a part of who they are. 

“She’s asleep now,” Ben mutters, handing Shmi back to Rose. “Thank you.”

************

The first time he senses a strong, distinct presence from Shmi in the Force, he is thousands of miles away, on a mission for the Resistance- something dangerous but difficult to ‘betray’. 

The sense comes in the form of a sharp pain in his lungs, a projected cry for help from a distressed child, reaching out to the only person whose presence she can feel, even as far from her as he is. 

He momentarily weighs his options- he can abandon his task and try to make it to Shmi, or he can trust that Rose is doing her job and return as soon as possible. He decides on the second one, finishes his work, and boards the ship that will return him to base. 

This isn’t like the Bond with Rey, when if she was in acute danger- god forbid- he could see her, what was wrong, for at least a moment. This is limited to a few vague cries of helpless pain, with no clarity was to what is actually happening. It is much more terrifying, and confusing, only the blurred mind of an infant. 

As soon as he lands, he throws the datapad from the mission to one of the officers. “I need to see my daughter,” he demands. 

It makes nearly everyone uncomfortable when he refers to Shmi as ‘my daughter’. He knows, and does it all the more for this reason. She _is_ his daughter, and he has a right to be her father. 

“She is in the Medbay with Major Tico. A guard will escort you there.”

Rose is pacing up and down a hallway, in front of a door Shmi is presumably behind. Her head jerks up when she sees Ben coming. “You’re back.”

“What’s wrong with Shmi? I felt something wrong.” It is difficult to explain the nudges from the Force to someone unfamiliar with it.

“Respiratory infection. She’ll be fine, but-” Rose shudders. “Scary. The doctors say she has weak lungs, always will…”

“But she’s alright.”

Rose nods. “They’ll call us in when we can come.”

His relief is immediately replaced with a sense of angry guilt. “I should have been here. What if she’d-” His rationality flees him for a moment, the practicality of the situation replaced by this- this guilt, not a gnawing guilt, but a ravenous one that attacks him all at once. 

“You were where you had to be,” Rose replies. “Doing what you’re told is the most you can do for her right now- so you can be a part of her life someday. You won’t be able to be there for everything.”

And that’s when it hits him- he _can’t_ be there for everything, maybe for most things. Spending maybe two hours with her a day, when he was lucky, always being gone- this didn’t count as being her father, as being anyone to her other than something slightly more than a stranger. _Ten years._ It will be ten years before he is a free man. That’s more than half of Shmi’s childhood. 

Rose seems to sense some of this anger. “I can talk to your handlers,” she blurts out. “Maybe we can work something out. So you can Shmi see more.” It’s a hollow gesture, but something. “This would all be easier if Rey had left a-” her voice trails off. 

Because Ben can still not stand to hear hardly anything about her, anything pertaining to her death, and his rage and guilt and grief come off him in their own aura, making them clear to everyone else around him. It is not like when he was Supreme Leader, and his rage sent troopers running. It’s just… sad. And unresolved. 

But he doesn’t have time to brood on this, because a nurse with a clipboard opens the door. “Come on in.”

************

Shmi recovers quickly, but it leaves Ben scared and a little overprotective, as much as he can be. Every hiccup, every cough makes him jolt a little and worry for her. It’s just a new manifestation of the stress he has always struggled to contain but it is terrifying nonetheless, and in an entirely different way.

Ben might still be feared and even hated, but Shmi is the darling of the entire base, loved and coddled by all the lonely people who have lost their families or have not had the chance to had one. He can’t help but think how much Rey would have loved to see this- Rey, who grew up without friends or a family, seeing her daughter being doted on by dozens of loving people. He always wonders: does Rey know, or at least understand? That he’s doing his best to make their daughter happy and keep her safe. That he wishes he’d known sooner. That he would turn back time and change everything if it meant he could see her again. 

Hindsight is 20/20. But his foresight might just be improving.

************

Rose quietly steps back a little from Shmi’s life and lets Ben spend more time with the baby. Of course, she stays involved, but the fact is that, amid her loyalty to Rey, Rose is not necessarily eager or willing to have children over her own, at least not yet.

So he gets to be there.There for her to learn to call him “Da,” in her funny voice that seems too low for an eight-month-old baby. He doesn’t get to be there when she befriends R2-D2 and tries to imitate his beeping noises. But he does get to be there when Lieutenant Konnix sets her down on the and tells her to ‘go see dad’, and surprises them both by walking instead of crawling the few clumsy steps before stumbling into Ben’s arms. 

The Lieutenant smiles a little at him, and it’s an unfamiliar friendly gesture. He recalls that she and her wife were friends of his mother, and there’s the guilt again. That he never apologized, never said good-bye, never got to explain anything to her. 

He wonders how he would if he had the chance- but he gets the feeling that wherever she is, she knows. Mothers always know.

************

Shmi is a year old when he first takes her to visit Rey’s grave. Rey was not technically military, so she did not get a military burial. Her grave is instead in a field of grass and flowers, and it’s exactly what she would have wanted- to be surrounded by green forever. He had been allowed to attend her funeral, albeit under heavy guard. A morbid honour for the bearer of bad news. 

There’s always fresh flowers on it from someone. Sometimes a note or a trinket or just a dusting-off. So many people loved and respected and admired Rey. For her strength, her hope, or any number of other things. 

Of course, Shmi doesn’t understand the significance of where she is. She’s more concerned with chasing after butterflies and falling down and pulling flowers. But he tells her nonetheless. 

“Your mother loved you so much,” he tells her. “She died so you could grow up safe. She was so brave. She’s still taking care of us.”

She smiles uncomprehendingly and dives for a bright blue butterfly, nearly falling on her face. Ben catches her sleeve. “Let’s just watch the butterflies, sweetheart.”

************

“As you recall, the terms of your sentence were that you would undergo reviews at designated times based on behaviour and other circumstances.”

“I do.” The odds of him, of all people, getting a sentence reduction are astronomically low, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t tried. 

“These reviews have been combined and appraised and-”

But their conversation is interrupted by a three-year-old girl pushing open the door and climbing into Ben’s lap. “Da? What are you doing?”

“Dad’s- working right now, sweetheart. Where’s Aunt Rose?”

Shmi shrugs. “I got bored.”

“She’s probably worried about you, love. Maybe we should-”

At this moment, Rose bursts through the door. “There she is! You had me worried, Shmi.”

She smiles unrepentantly. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for the interruption, Ben. She just slips away like-”

He nods. Force-sensitive toddlers are their own special brand of trouble, he knows. Rose takes Shmi’s tiny hand and leads her back out of the room. 

He turns back to the officer. “I apologize for the intrusion. Sir, she’s usually not-”

People are quick to forgive young children, especially young children who are not their own. “Back to what I was saying. Your sentence has been reduced to a total of five years- a remaining two of the ones you have already served.”

It is a surprise, though not an unwelcome one. “I- I don’t know what to say-”

“And at the end of your term, you’ll be granted full custody of your daughter.”

For some reason, what strikes him more than anything else is the fact that someone other than himself or Rose called her his daughter. “Thank you,” he says simply. 

************

Maybe a dozen photos of Rey exist in the entire Universe, all within the same one-year time frame. Two simple ones taken one year apart for her Resistance photo ID, a few candids taken from friends on her base, and a couple of her with her arms around friends, smiling brightly at the camera. 

He keeps one of the candids, one of her wearing a small smile and studying a book, in a locket. He recognizes the book and the posture, and remembers a brief, barely-conversation they had through the Bond a couple weeks after Crait. But he hadn’t known she’d been smiling afterwards. 

There is also the photo of her in her coffin, saber in her arms and flowers in her hair. He prefers not to look at that one. 

Shmi finds one when she is about five and starts keeping it in her room. She has been regaled her whole life with stories about her mother, the hero, the scholar, the warrior. Ben wonders if she is sad never to have known her mother- and she is, but in a wistful rather than a heartbroken way.

“I want my hair like that.” Shmi gestures to the picture of Rey, in the three-bun hairstyle she sported on Jakku and sometimes in combat. “It’s pretty.”

“Only if you hold still,” Ben replies. She’s a jittery child, with excitement and energy and a busy mind. 

She can’t hold still, and the buns are messier than they would have been otherwise, but she is pleased enough with them. 

He teaches her new hairstyles, Alderaanian braids that he is one of the last to know, ones his mother once taught him. The tradition will always be passed on. The empire may have destroyed Leia Organa’s home, but they will never destroy her legacy. 

************

The old Jedi began teaching apprentices almost as soon as they were old enough to walk. Ben will not let this much pressure be applied to Shmi, but he does teach her a little about the Force. She’s very strong, and how could she be anything else, with her powerful bloodlines. 

“Show me how you lift rocks again,” she pleads. 

What would Luke have said? _It’s not about lifting rocks._ He was always more spiritual, idealistic, less material and practical. Ben tries to strike the balance between the two. 

He plucks a smooth, round stone from the path outside their cottage on Naboo. “It doesn’t matter how big or small they are,” he explains patiently. “The principle is the same.”

He holds the rock out in his palm. “Do you want to try?”

She always does, and never can, except this time, when it hovers out of his palm for a moment before landing on the gravel.

He ruffles her curly hair. “You're learning, darling.”

************

“The Galactic government wants you to take apprentices,” Rose tells him. 

Ben avoids eye contact, watching Shmi tumble in the grass with one of the neighbour children. “No,” he says flatly. “I’m no Jedi. And I’m certainly not a teacher.”

“You’re one of the last, if not the last trained Force-sensitives in the galaxy. You can’t just let all that knowledge just- die.”

“There are books,” he replies coldly. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s all I have to say.”

“What will it take to convince you?”

He snorts. “Prove to me that there is a single right-minded parent in the galaxy who wants their children to be trained by Kylo Ren.”

But Rose is obstinate. She comes back two weeks later with handfuls of letters and pictures, addressed from all over the galaxy. She thrusts them into Ben’s arms. “All parents of Force-sensitive children who want them trained by you. All are fully aware of your past. Are you still going to say no?”

He sets down the letters. “I’ll think about it.” But they both know that he will accept. 

************

He tells Shmi a little bit about her family history, slowly, over the years, as she thinks she is old enough to handle it. She takes each piece in stride and understands and accepts every part, even when Ben confesses his own bloodstained history. He is careful not to make the mistakes his family made, of silence and secrets and letting him find out on his own. 

Ben sees in Shmi everything he or Rey could have been, if found and guided and nurtured properly. Shmi’s children may be even happier than she is. Each generation is a new chance to learn and improve, to pass down and change the ways of life and the Force. 

She is no Jedi. None of the children he trains are- there was an element of truth in what Luke said, that it is time for the Jedi to end. There need be neither extreme dark nor extreme light. That was the biggest mistake of both the old Jedi and the old Sith. 

************

Rey watches them from afar, from beyond, a ghost in the vast nexus of the Force. She longs to be with them, to get to live that life, but never regrets her decision. 

Leia feels her longing, watching her daughter grow up without her. “You couldn’t have left her in better hands, you know.”

“I know.” Ben is the perfect father to little Shmi, patient, devoted, and gentle. “He knows.” Rey sends him little signs every once in a while. The channel of communication has been open their whole lives, sending each other signs whether they knew it or not. Now she uses the weakened but eternal bond to remind him that she’s still watching out for him. That he is not alone. 

She kisses her hand and blows gently across her palm, the kiss first coalescing into glitter and then into a bright blue butterfly that flies beyond them and onto Ben’s palm. He studies it for a moment, a small smile on his lips, before releasing it into the sky.

“Be with me,” he whispers into the sky after it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seeing Daisy Ridley in Murder on the Orient Express last night makes me want to write an AU in which Rey is clearly a troubled woman with a criminal past and Ben is the man whose daughter she becomes governess for. 
> 
> Thanks so much for your support on this little fic, I really appreciate! I'm still not over TROS after five months, and I'm obsessed with Ben's blue butterflies. Thank you <333

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments greatly appreciated!


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